Goodbye Old Friends

Yesterday we received the sad news that All My Children and One Life to Live were being cancelled and low level talk shows were replacing them. I am beyond saddened; I grew up watching these soaps and continue to watch AMC to this day. Whatever will I do without Tad, Jesse, Liza, Angie and of course Erica?
All My Children was always at the forefront in tackling controversial issues in their storylines. My favorite was the friendship of Jesse and Jenny, it was the purest form of male/female friendship, he was her protector, her friend, a big brother. The thing that made it controversial was Jesse was African American and Jenny was Caucasian, this was the first time this was portrayed on television. Number one, how could a boy and girl be nothing more than friends? Especially attractive ones, next how on earth could these two be friends? This was the 1970’s and from what I understand the Southern states were up in arms about it. But as everyone continued to watch and Agnes Nixon stayed the course with the storyline, the viewers saw beyond color, beyond gender and saw the friendship, the sweetness and the amazing relationship between these two. It remains my favorite storyline to date.
On One Life to Live my favorite character without a doubt was Tina Lord; she was outrageous, funny, and beautiful and could flirt like nobody I had ever seen before. She had all the boys, she was on the playing level of Scarlett O’Hara and I was impressed and took notes. In the 1980’s I even had my hair like hers, pure craziness.
I will miss my shows, I will miss my characters and I am saddened by ABC’s decision to put subpar reality shows. I am not a fan of the talk show or reality show so I will not be watching; I know these shows will not be successful. And ABC will move on to something else. I wish the actors well, I hope they land on their feet and get other work; it will be sad saying goodbye to old friends.